This is especially for grodney, but I'd also like to know what Donovan, jukeshoe, and anyone else thinks...

Rodney has stated that faith in the resurrection of Jesus is insanity. I can understand that and appreciate where he's coming from. If he's correct then the kindest thing that he could do would be to disabuse believers like me from the delusional notion.

To put it another way-- atheists believe that there is no god while monotheists believe that God exists.
By the fundamental law of non-contradiction these beliefs cannot both be true. One or the other is mistaken about the nature of Ultimate Reality. Can we agree on this as a starting point?

Here are other oppositional issues along the same lines:
-Atheists believe that Jesus was not god (because he was only a man); Christians believe that Jesus is God (although fully human too).
-Atheists believe that man has no soul and is not eternal; Christians believe that man has an eternal soul.

These beliefs cannot both be true. One is correct and one is wrong. Do you agree with this line of reasoning?

Second, I am no one to be speaking for all atheist, but I will do my best and will be taking that side of these discussions.

I think there is no sense in discussing Jesus at all. It has nothing to do with the true question here. There are hundreds of religions out there and thousands of sects of those religions, so the true question to ask is:

Is there a god or no god?

I thought of saying god(s) in that question instead, but realized we have to decide that there is at least one god first, before deciding if there can be more than one. Then if we prove/decide there is a god(s), then you can start getting into the Buddha, Ala, Jesus, or whatever.

As far as the soul thing is concerned, I don't think it matters either. Whether we have a soul or not, death will answer this when it comes. For me, it is kind of a non-issue. I'm not saying I won't discuss these other things, but I don't see what they really have to do with it until the initial question can be determined that there is a god.

Hi Lowe. I'm not sure I'll participate in this group in any meaningful way, but I wanted to respond to your post.

In my easter thread in the athiest group, I was separating "belief in some higher being or force" from "belief in the easter story". They are two completely different things to me. If you need to join them, then we really have nothing to discuss.

To put it another way, to *ME*:
- Belief in a something nobody understands -- a higher force, a god, a sprituality, etc -- is nothing I really care to dispute.
- Belief in a particular story in a particular religion, which contains supernatural elements and absolutely no verifiable proof that it ever happened, and on top of that claims to be for the forgiveness of the sins of all believers (or is it everyone, I forget?) , is crazy.

I'm not a religious scholar. I'm not smart on these things. I have no way to win an "argument" against a religious scholar -- believer or not. I'm simply stating what is patently obvious to me.

[Quote=Olorin]
A. God exists
B. God does not exist
These 2 statements cannot both be true, therefore one is true and one is false. Are we agreed on this point?[Quote]

I would prefer it to be these 2 statements that cannot both be true:
A. A god exists
B. A god does not exist

I don't agree that it makes sense to argue a particular god. That would only narrow your side of the discussion. I'm willing to allow any belief system to work on this discussion, not just one. However, if you feel it needs to be only a Christianity God discussion, I can live with that and your version is fine with me as well.

Olorin posted:
As a case in point I used these 2 statements:
A. God exists
B. God does not exist
These 2 statements cannot both be true, therefore one is true and one is false. Are we agreed on this point?

Absolute agreement.

So how does one go about determining the truth? How would you approach any other non-religious question in your life?

Most people have at least a minimum level of required evidence for something before they commit to believing it. In otherwords, they don't just believe everything their told. But they seem to depart from their rational brain when it comes to the desire to believe that they can somehow survive their own deaths. It's like there's no limit to the amount of ridiculousness that some people are willing to believe in order to delude themselves into believing they'll never really die.

But the question as to whether there is really a god depends on what evidence is there for one to exist. And the onus for that evidence is on the shoulders of those that claim that existence.

Unfortunately for the believers, they can only offer philisophical arguments rather than any physical proofs. And every argument made by believers so far has been easliy destroyed because of logical flaws and contradictions in the arguments themselves.

But what I think is the most important point to remember about the argument is that just because science cannot disprove the existence of a god doesn't mean they can't say a whole lot about the probability of that existence. Believers want everyone to believe that their side is at least on an equal footing with science, but it's not. Everything we've learned about the workings of the universe declare the odds of a god existing are, for all practical purposes, nil.

Science is not in any way close minded to the possibility of god. It would be a fantastic discovery, spawning an entirely new branch of science. One that no doubt would be HEAVILY funded by our church influenced government.